catholicnessn.

1572 A. Golding tr. H. Bullinger Confut. Popes Bull f. 50 (heading) Here is expounded, what catholikenesse is, and who be catholike [L. quid Catholicum, & qui Catholici].

1674 D. Brevint Saul & Samuel ii. 10 Thus one may judg of the Catholicness, which Romanists brag of.

1697 Propositions extracted from Reasons for Found. & Promotion of Philadelphian Society 7 The Oneness, the Holiness, and the Catholickness or Universality of this Spirit, will not suffer us to Appropriate it to Any.

1710 J. Barville Acct. Late Conversion i. 50 The particular Church of Rome is the universal Church of the World, which never can be prov'd by a better Argument than their Numbers and great Extent over the World; and then where was the Catholickness of the Church, in the Time of the Arians? Were not these more powerful and numerous than the orthodox Christians?

1661 J. Glanvill Let. 3 Sept. in R. Baxter 2nd True Def. Meer Nonconformists (1681) xiv. 182 The freedom of your spirit, the impartiality of your inquiries, the Catholickness of your judgment and affections..have so endear'd you to me.

1839 S. Freeman in J. Cochrane Protestant's Man. I. x. 313 We are to imitate this prayer of Christ's in composing our own, as to its brevity and compendiousness, as to the subject-matter of it, as to the catholicness of its spirit, obliging us to pray for others at the same time when we pray for ourselves.

1848 A. Tolhausen Klopstock, Lessing, & Wieland Introd. 6 Thus literature acquires a sort of catholicness which cannot but augment its strength.

1875 Burlington (Iowa) Daily Hawk-eye 5 Aug. 6/3 This narrow bigotry, this want of depth and breadth and all-embracing catholicness, renders them singularly unfit.

1950 Cornell Daily Sun (Ithaca, N.Y.) 2 Dec. 4/3 Tolerance, catholicness of subject matter, presence of 60 nations on our campus—these are what Cornell has meant to me.

1998 Icon Crit. Dict. of Postmodern Thought 315/1 It was his catholicness..which led the general public to take him seriously. Like Andy Warhol and the Beatles in their own respective fields, he championed the breakdown of distinctions between high and low culture.

1676 D. Clarkson Pract. Divinity Papists iv. 116 They will not seek for their Christianity, and Catholickness in a Room lower than Purgatory.

1708 J. Collier Eccl. Hist. Great Brit. I. vii. 624/1 'Tis very unlikely the University of Oxford should either have Inclination or Courage to vouch thus freely for Wickliff's Catholickness.

1932 F. J. Sheed Irish Way 328 Saint or not he is a superb symbol—the adequate and satisfying representative of that special quality of Irish Catholicness.

1991 Hobart Mercury (Nexis) 5 Sept. Even lapsed Catholics still have an inherent ‘Catholicness’ about them and can probably still remember their first communion, confirmation and the first few lines of the Hail Mary.

2003 Catholic Tel. (Cincinnati, Ohio) 18 July 5/3 They felt the Catholicness of the hospital was lost, and I agreed with them.